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Editor's note: This was originally published May 4, 2013 in The Gazette and on montrealgazette.com

MONTREAL - Montreal's next mayor will need the fortitude of a storybook hero, the vision of Jean Drapeau and the managerial wizardry of New York's Michael Bloomberg to help the city triumph over a debilitating corruption crisis, pockmarked roads, decrepit bridges, a bureaucratic tangle and the divisive stammers of a contrived linguistic battle.

Yet with only six months to go before Montreal taxpayers choose the person they expect to lead them out of the dark forest of kickbacks and construction cones, the field is still wide open. Those few candidates who have thrown their names into the hat - or are about to - have yet to rouse widespread enthusiasm.

"They're not bad people," a former city councillor said of Vision Montreal's Louise Harel, Projet Montréal's Richard Bergeron and Denis Coderre, the Liberal member of Parliament for Bourassa who is widely expected to announce his candidacy on May 16. "But they haven't said or done anything that makes me want to run out and want to work for them."

Political analysts, business leaders and community organizers say Montreal desperately needs inspired, unselfish, imaginative and inclusive leadership if it is to climb out of the muck and regain its lustre in time for the city's 375th birthday - and 50th anniversary of Expo 67 - in 2017.

"Montreal is facing a serious crisis of governance and trust, mediocre performance, major development projects that are late getting off the ground and a tarnished image both at home and abroad," Board of Trade president Michel Leblanc said when the business group launched an appeal for a new mayor on Wednesday. The chamber of commerce cited three key challenges facing the city and its next leader: "Rebuilding trust between citizens and city hall, establishing strong leadership, which will put the mayor on firm footing with other levels of government, and rebuilding the city's image."

The timing of the board's appeal suggests the business community has yet to be persuaded that the people who've expressed an interest in the $156,128 position are up to the task.

But what are the leadership skills Montreal needs most in its next mayor to weather the fallout of the Charbonneau Commission?

"Strength of character, willingness to exert leadership," said Martin Bergeron of Réflexion Montréal, a think tank he set up with urban analysts last fall. He said tackling corruption and collusion must be Job 1.

"If we don't deal with that, we don't get the trust of citizens. How do you move on with spending on projects if people think you are giving money to crooks?"

"Montreal is - or has to be - in a period of reconstruction. For that, it needs a generational change," said Danielle Pilette, a professor of urban studies at Université du Québec à Montréal. "So Harel and Bergeron are not the answer."

Pilette is adamant the choice shouldn't be Coderre, either, or any other minister who blows in from Ottawa or Quebec City.

"It must be someone with a true Montreal outlook ... a young leader strongly identified with the Montreal community, not someone who is going to think like they need permission from another level of government. That is what the business community wants.

"Montreal is best when it imposes its vision on other levels of government, rather than the other way around."

Raphaël Fischler, director of the School of Urban Planning at McGill University, said the next mayor needs to be committed to cleaning up city government and to make it more open and accountable - and the courage to push to make those policy changes happen.

"The new mayor must have a substantive vision for Montreal as a great city and he or she must see and defend Montreal as the cosmopolitan city that it is," Fischler said.

"We are hungering for a leader," said Blema Steinberg, an emeritus professor at McGill University, where she taught politics and psychology. "The ideal mayor would be a true spokesman for Montreal, in the way Bloomberg has been for New York. Someone who will really speak for Montreal."

Martin Bergeron is a policy analyst who left the Montreal Board of Trade to set up Réflexion Montréal. At 43, with a master's in public policy from Concordia University, he's a self-proclaimed "policy wonk," bursting with ideas about what Montreal needs. Things like restructuring city government and boroughs, wrestling with employee pension funds and finding innovative ways to keep young families in the city without turning the metropolis into a suburb.

"It's not going to be about cutting ribbons and throwing a Christmas ball. It's going to be a thankless job."

Bergeron doesn't hide the fact that he'd also like to run for municipal office, sooner rather than later, ideally alongside a candidate whose political philosophy coincides with his. For the moment, he's still waiting to figure out who that person might be.

"Louise Harel cannot be the mayor of Montreal," said Bergeron, who sees her role as Parti Québécois minister for municipal affairs during the forced merger of Montreal and its suburbs as just one factor destined to keep her out of the mayor's chair.

"The irony is she is the architect of the new city, but she cannot be mayor," Bergeron said, citing the 71-year-old Harel's weak English skills and staunch sovereignist beliefs. "The last thing we need is a divisive mayor that can strongly represent one part of the population, but be polarizing to the other ones."

His namesake, Projet Montréal's Richard Bergeron, "has some good ideas, but he's not a realistic politician." He mentioned the Projet Montréal leader's position on a proposed 37-kilometre tramway, which he said his administration would build over five years with help from private backers.

As someone who worked on a tram study during his years at the Board of Trade, Bergeron said the claim is unrealistic. "He could knock on all the doors he wants. It would not work. He tends to do that with a lot of projects. They make sense in his mind."

Of Coderre, "he has at least one thing going for him: he wants the job!" Bergeron said. "Other than that, we know so little about what he intends to do that it is hard to judge. I guess we will have to wait to see."

In her 2012 book, Leading So People Will Follow, Erika Andersen calls the longing for good leaders "an ancient primal group survival mechanism," a need hardwired into our psyche. "When someone is put in the leader's seat who doesn't demonstrate the leadership qualities for which we have a kind of built-in radar, that person is unlikely to be effective as a leader."

Andersen, a leadership consultant who also blogs for Forbes.com, writes much of what she learned about the essential traits of great leaders can be found in the fairy tales she read to her children when they were small - far-sightedness, passion, wisdom, courage, generosity and trustworthiness.

True leaders, Roberts wrote, "must be fearless and have the fortitude to carry out assignments given to them - the gallantry to accept the risks of leadership."

Emotional and physical strength are also keys to success, he argued. "We must ensure that our leaders have the stamina to recover rapidly from disappointment, to bounce back from discouragement, to carry out the responsibilities of their office without becoming discouraged."

Roberts also cautions leaders to be on the lookout for backstabbers and mutiny. "Be wise and anticipate the Brutus in your camp."

In Good to be Great, management guru Jim Collins suggests true leaders are steeped in discipline, organization, follow through, the ability to build a strong team and to keep those people happy and productive.

In Effective Crisis Leadership, the Conference Board of Canada looked at the qualities commonly found in business, political and community leaders who performed best in emergencies as different as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the listeria outbreak at Maple Leaf Foods. "In crisis situations, outstanding leaders are confident and decisive. They make sound and timely decisions. ... They give direction when needed and are not afraid."

Crisis leaders are also good at assessing potential risks, the Conference Board report found, avoiding what Ralph Dunham of Marsh Inc. called "the four degrees of denial: 1. It won't happen. 2. It won't happen to me. 3. It won't be that bad. 4. I couldn't have done anything about it anyway."

What is it that separates leaders from followers, bluster from ballast and style from substance? And is there a way to distinguish whether the traits that seem to matter so much on the campaign trail - big promises, polished delivery, shiny hair - will translate into the kind of person who can deliver a balanced budget or stand up to the bad guys?

"People sell us bills of goods all the time. We are such suckers for a charming man," said Marjorie Nor-thrup, who oversees the Meals on Wheels program at the Volunteer Bureau of Montreal. "I think we need plodders and pencil pushers, boring accountant types. Or are we going to get another Justin Trudeau, someone with charisma?"

"I don't think Bloomberg would rank very high in anyone's idea of charisma," Steinberg said. Nor would Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir, the two female leaders whose careers she studied most closely.

"Maybe that's the wrong word. Not a Justin Trudeau kind of charisma. It's not a movie star thing so much as a need to be sufficiently convinced of the rightness of their mission."

Steinberg said politicians fall into two broad categories - those who enter politics because they have strong convictions and things they want done and pragmatists "who see the job as maintaining good relations" with their caucus and voters - and getting re-elected.

What Montreal needs now, she said, is someone with integrity, a commitment to the city and the ability to attract people around new projects for the city.

"Whether or not we agreed with him all the time, Jean Drapeau had a vision that excited people," the former city councillor said. "I'd be looking for someone with energy and integrity who really wants to serve the whole city."

"Who is going to have the courage, desire and stamina to want to do this?" wondered Marguerite Mendell, director of the School of Public Affairs at Concordia University. A social economist, she was impressed with the progressive policies and democracies put forward when Jean Doré and the Montreal Citizens Movement first took office.

"But that whole generation, they are old," Mendell said. "People enter politics in their 70s, so I am not being ageist. But if you really want to get some 40-and 50-somethingyear-olds, there aren't that many people with that kind of experience and credibility."

Unlike New York City, Montreal doesn't have a multibillionaire with stellar managerial skills like Bloomberg looking to save the day and if necessary, throw his own money at key projects.

That doesn't mean there aren't any suitable candidates for the job, provided they were interested.

"Someone like Isabelle Hudon, formerly at the Board of Trade, now at Sun Life - fits the bill perfectly," Pilette said. She's also been impressed with Alexandre Taillefer, an entrepreneur plugged in to Montreal's cultural scene as chair of the Musée d'art contemporain.

Pilette doesn't see a lack of experience on city council as an obstacle.

"If anything, there may be an advantage to not having been on the inside over the last 10 years."

Bergeron sees previous political experience as an asset, but not a prerequisite. "Michael Bloomberg, for example, had never done politics before. Yet he is a great and strong leader for New York and no one would dare not listen to him."

Steinberg would like to see Raymond Bachand, former finance minister who lost the provincial leadership race to Philippe Couillard, take a run at it. "He is someone of proven integrity. ... Should he decide to take on the challenge, I think he will demonstrate real leadership ability and strong convictions about where and what Montreal needs to do to clean house and reinvigorate our collective life in this wonderful city."

So what is it that Montreal will need from this new leader, whoever that man or woman happens to be?

Beyond the obvious need to restore public confidence in the political system, Fischler said the next mayor must take the lead in areas that aren't strictly municipal concerns, "most notably the abysmal dropout rate in our schools and the poverty trap in which too many residents live." He also wants the next administration to push for higher standards in real-estate development, architecture and urban design.

"Finally, the new mayor must, at all costs, (be in a) position above the politics of language and be a vocal defender of Montreal as a cosmopolitan city where freedom and creativity matter more than identity and history," Fischler said. "(The new mayor) must understand that the city owes its past, present and future well-being to its ability to attract people from around the world and give them a tolerant environment in which to interact and to create."

"Montreal is definitely in the doldrums," said Steinberg, who noted the harassment of small businesses by Quebec language inspectors has been almost as demoralizing as the revelations of corruption and collusion at the Charbonneau Commission hearings. "The next mayor has to engage English-speaking residents and make them feel they are an integral part of the community."

For Bergeron, it's imperative that the next mayor find a way to push harder for Montreal's concerns, which are often ignored by federal and provincial governments that don't see political gains in a region where voting patterns have been fairly predictable.

"We are a city of 1.9 million people and sometimes it feels like our priorities are treated not as important as Laval or Quebec City," Bergeron said. "It's not enough to send a wish list and then wait for results."

Still, Bergeron said the next mayor won't have any clout - in Ottawa, Quebec or with Montreal residents - until people believe he or she is serious about cleaning up the city's act.

"You'd like to think we wouldn't have to say: 'We need elected officials that have ethics.'

Duh. That ought to be a prerequisite and you don't even have to discuss it. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in. If we don't get the trust of the population, we cannot go forward with major reforms."